Theatres of War: French Committed Theatre from the Second World War to the Cold War

Examines the "committed" theatre that flourished in modern France from 1944 to the mid-1950s. The text combines historical contextualization, pointing up the moral and political debate of the theatre of the period, with analysis of specific plays.
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Overview

Examines the "committed" theatre that flourished in modern France from 1944 to the mid-1950s. The text combines historical contextualization, pointing up the moral and political debate of the theatre of the period, with analysis of specific plays.

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Editorial Reviews

MLR

“But some literary works . . . acquire, as the years go by, a 'petite madeleine' quality that brings back, especially to those fortunate to have tasted them when they came out, the whole atmosphere of the period in which they were first produced. This is particularly true of several of the fifteen plays studied in this well-researched and impeccably documented book. . . Freeman brings the atmosphere of the late 1940s and early 1950s so compellingly back to life that I felt at times as though I was reading a particularly good historical novel.” –MLR 94.3, 1999

Modern Language Review

But some literary works . . . acquire, as the years go by, a ‘petite madeleine’ quality that brings back, especially to those fortunate to have tasted them when they came out, the whole atmosphere of the period in which they were first produced. This is particularly true of several of the fifteen plays studied in this well-researched and impeccably documented book. . . Freeman brings the atmosphere of the late 1940s and early 1950s so compellingly back to life that I felt at times as though I was reading a particularly good historical novel.

Speech and Drama

Weaving together theatrical, social and political history in a readable and informative way, Theatres of War is a useful guide to a neglected area of postwar French theatre history.

Forum for Modern Language Studies

Not only is this study a timely re-appraisal of French committed theatre at a crucial point in France’s history (1942-54) from various political stances, it opens up the question of the didactic or realist nature of littérature engagée more widely. . . a thought-provoking and searching challenge to new and old devotees of French committed theatre and twentieth-century theatre more widely.

French Studies Review

Freeman’s lucid and detailed historical analysis focuses on plays which are often neglected by literary or theatre historians, since they marked no advance in the art of drama. His criterion for inclusion is rather that they should have been seen at the time as important because of their subject matter. This approach requires a commentary that can sum up complex social issues and can show how the plays in question affected or responded to the political climate of their time. Freeman meets that interdisciplinary challenge and vindicates his claim that the plays merit fresh consideration. His climax is an important ‘find’: Drame à Toulon - Henri Martin, the one play of the period which really fulfilled the dreams of the Théâtre Populaire pioneers, being performed to huge popular acclaim in worker’s halls all over France and provoking a prise de conscience by the French working class concerning their role in colonial wars. In this book, Freeman convincingly brings to life a lost age, when the theatre still provided a debating forum for mattersof national importance.